She didn’t ask what he meant by safer. She thought she already knew. And she agreed. She had an awful suspicion that the time they spent together would lead to craving more and more and more. And the longer it lasted, the stronger the craving would get.
If he was being brutally honest, she could, too, if only to herself. And she could admit that this wasn’t only about getting over a sexual fixation that might very well afflict her for the rest of her life. It was about sharing something she would never have the chance to experience again with the one man who had ever gotten deep enough into her heart to matter.
She might fall in love again one day, but she knew it would never be like it was with Sebastian. Their connection was something special and no matter what he felt, or didn’t feel, she could acknowledge that—inside herself at least—where the admission was safe.
“So, three days.”
“Three days.”
Then he kissed her and the watershed of emotions she’d just gone through fed the passion he’d sparked earlier until her insides felt like a raging inferno of unsatisfied longing.
The slip-slide of their bodies together in the water was amazing. She undulated against him, learning a whole new series of pleasure points. His hands were all over her, mapping her skin, branding her with his touch.
She didn’t realize they’d been moving until she felt the cool water of the waterfall showering her skin. They were outside. She tried to make herself care, but she couldn’t. This felt right…natural.
The knowledge in the back of her mind that there was an eight foot tall brick privacy wall all the way around the backyard helped. So did the fact that the closest neighbor was at least a quarter of a mile away. She was going to ume the caterer had either already come and gone, or Sebastian had not paged him to return yet.
She had no doubt that her three-day lover was too possessive to allow another man the possibility of seeing her . He’d been much too disturbed by the server seeing her in her swimsuit with a T-shirt over it.
So, she relaxed…mentally anyway…and let herself wallow in the feelings he was causing. Her body screamed with pleasure and need. And this time even a dunk in a mountain fed stream wouldn’t cool her off.
He swam with her, their lips still locked together, until they reached the steps in the outer pool. Then he swept her into his arms and carried her out of the water.
She broke the kiss to ask, “Where are we going?”
He nodded toward a decadent wrought-iron double lounger under a Roman canopy in the middle of the emerald green grass.
“Oh,” she breathed.
He smiled, the look indulgent and warm. She was careful not to read anything more into it than masculine desire. She wasn’t going to lie to herself again.
He laid her carefully onto the overstuffed oyster shell cushion and then joined her, covering her body with his.
“Have I told you how beautiful and downright sexy you are, princess?”
“You might have mentioned it.” Her voice was croaky and filled with want.
He kissed his way down to her . “It deserves more than a mention.”
“Thank you. You’re the sexiest man I have ever known.”
“Glad to hear it.” Then his mouth curved around her distended .
He laved, then sucked, then circled the sensitive peak with his tongue before doing it all over again while his hands were busy touching her all over.
She reached for him, but he grabbed her hands and placed them over the ornate white iron bar at her head. “Keep them there, princess.”
“But I want to touch you.”
“You agreed to let me call the shots.”
“In the room. We’re outside now.”
“I want you to hold onto the bar. Will you do that for me?”
She couldn’t deny him, realized she didn’t even want to. “Yes.”
If she’d thought his touching before was intense, it was nothing like what she experienced now. He caressed, traced, licked, nibbled and teased every inch of her skin until she was a quivering mass of nerve endings ready to explode.
Then he spread her legs with gentle hands and leaned forward to touch his tongue to the most intimate part of her.
She screamed and came and shook as her body immediately began the climb toward another . As he lashed her pleasure spot with his tongue, his finger explored her inner recesses. She felt a pressure…some pain…but it only heightened her pleasure high. Then a second finger joined the first and he pressed them deeply inside, gently massaging a barrier she knew denoted her status.
As she went supernova the second time in less than a minute, he pressed forward and a sharp pain mixed with her euphoric pleasure.
When he withdrew his fingers, they had blood on them. She saw it through the haze of her satiation and she knew what it meant. He had broken her barrier…claimed her in a way no other man would ever be able to.
A primitive part of her she had not even known existed was fiercely glad.
He surged up until his body covered hers. He pressed his hard penis against her tender flesh, but did not attempt to breach her opening. Instead he thrust against her, his length sliding along her oris from root to tip with each pelvic movement.
“What…? I…this…” She couldn’t string a coherent thought together, but she knew this wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
Only it felt so good and he seemed to be enjoying it as well. His face was contorted in ecstasy as his thrusts increased in speed and pressure. Her body had been so starved for this that she found herself careening toward another .
When it came, she heard him shout and felt warm wetness against her belly.
Everything was so intense, she felt like she might pass out, but she clung to consciousness, not wanting to miss a moment of the pleasure.
Sebastian said something against her temple that she could not make out.
“What?” she asked in pleasure slurred tones.
For one second he looked totally freaked out before his usual game face slipped back into place and he shook his head. “Nothing.”
“If you say so.”
“I want to do this again.”
“It’s a good thing we have three days.”
Something dark crossed his countenance, but he nodded. “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HAWK tracked Lina down in the living room. She was curled up on the oversize suede leather sofa dozing. He’d left her alone to answer some e-mails and make a few phone calls, but he’d ended up closing down his computer before the in-box was empty and ignoring an important call from Japan in order to find out what she was doing.
It was an addiction.
Not just , but simply being in her company.
He enjoyed it. Too much.
For the first time in his life, he considered the possibility that he was in love. With a woman promised to another man. How lacking in intelligence was that?
Only Lina didn’t consider herself engaged and because she didn’t, he didn’t, either. On the first day they were here, she’d said he was like her father. Maybe he was. In some ways, but not all ways and certainly not to the point that he was willing to force his princess into a marriage she didn’t want.
He’d been a fool to think he could do so from the beginning. No matter what he’d said to her, he realized now that deep in his heart he had agreed to come after Lina himself so that he could once again protect her. This time from her family if need be. How could he have been so unaware of his own motives not to have seen it? Okay, so he was a very stubborn man and he had stubbornly insisted that he was never going to fall prey to love.
Only he had.
And the hell of it was, he didn’t even mind.
If only he could believe Lina’s family, or even she herself, would respond to his feelings with as much acceptance. She’d said she could never love him because of his similarities to her father, but he was hoping to change her mind. It didn’t help that she still referred to their lovemaking as sex, holding a part of herself back from him. He felt it and it made him crazy, which led him to try to break down the barrier. The only way he knew to do so was to .
Again.
Not that they’d actually had intercourse, but they’d done pretty much everything else. He’d told her he wanted to wait until she had healed a little inside before attempting to penetrate her. He didn’t want her first time with their bodies completely joined marred by soreness from her broken hymen.
And he was determined to make it their first time, not their last. It was going to happen tonight, their final agreed upon night together.
But right now, he just wanted to be with her. Sappy? Maybe. But true. And he was a big enough man…finally…to admit it. Okay, it also helped to know she was a U.S. citizen. What had been flat out impossible in his mind eight years ago, not shown with the light of hope to his rapidly changing heart.